1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording method, an ink jet recording apparatus and a recording material.
2. Related Art
In the related art, the recording of images and characters using minute ink droplets ejected from nozzles of an ink jet recording head, that is, an ink jet recording method is known. This ink jet recording method has been investigated with the object of being used in various fields in recent years for the reasons that the miniaturization of an apparatus is easy in comparison with the recording methods of the related art, the noise during recording is comparatively low, and the ink consumption amount is comparatively low since the ink is only used in a range which is necessary during recording. Therefore, there is a demand to be able to record an image with a favorable fixing property and quality with respect to not only a recording medium with high ink absorption (for example, normal paper, ink jet paper, or the like), but also to a recording medium with low or no ink absorption (for example, a polyolefin based plastic film such as polyethylene or the like). For example, in JP-A-2010-115791, there is described the recording of an image on a recording medium such as a polyolefin based plastic film using photocurable ink containing a coloring material, a photocurable monomer, a photopolymerization initiator, a gelling agent, and the like.
However, the photocurable ink as described above requires a mechanism for irradiating light to cure the ink attached to the recording medium. Therefore, there have been problems such as increases in the size of the ink jet recording apparatus, increases in the consumption of electric power, and the like. In addition, since the photocurable ink uses a large amount of organic solvent as the main solvent, there have been cases of problems relating to the environmental impact or the like which required special exhaust equipment.
Therefore, from the viewpoints of ease of handling, reducing the environmental impact, and the like, water-based inks have been widely investigated and used as inks used in the ink jet recording method. Water-based inks are ones in which coloring agents such as various types of dyes, pigments, or the like are dissolved or dispersed in a mixture of an organic solvent and water. However, the water-based inks that have been investigated in the related art are capable of favorably recording on a PET film or the like, but have difficulty in sufficiently fixing an image when recorded onto the polyolefin based plastic film, or the like. In addition, since the wetting and spreading properties on the polyolefin based plastic film are not sufficient, a phenomenon, in which ink is greatly unevenly distributed to and remains in a portion of the desired image region, that is, shading unevenness, occurs, whereby a tendency for the quality of the image to deteriorate is seen. This phenomenon has a tendency to be easily generated particularly in image portions in which the amount of attached ink is great in filled image portions or the like. The reasons for such a phenomenon occurring include the point that, in the polyolefin based plastic film, cases where the deformation temperature is lower than the PET film or the like are common, and for this reason it is difficult to perform heating sufficiently to dry and bond the ink on the film, and the further point that the polyolefin based plastic film tends to have surface hydrophobicity stronger in comparison with the PET film or the like, whereby the compatibility with water-based inks of the related art is poor, wetting and spreading are difficult, and adhesion is difficult.